Saturday, February 02, 2013

Steyn on containing Hagel

He warmed up with a little light “misspeaking” on Iran. “I support
the president’s strong position on containment,” he declared. Breaking
news!

Obama comes clean on Iran! According to Hagel, the administration
favors “containment.” I could barely “contain” my excitement! Despite
official denials, many of us had long suspected that, lacking any
stomach for preventing a nuclear Tehran, Washington would settle for
“containing” them. Hagel has been a containment man for years: It worked
with the Soviets, so why not with apocalyptic ayatollahs? As he said in
a 2007 speech, “The core tenets of George Kennan’s ‘The Long Telegram’
and the strategy of containment remain relevant today.” Recent history
of pre-nuclear Iran — authorizing successful mob hits on Salman
Rushdie’s publishers and translators, bombing Jewish community centers
in Buenos Aires, seeding client regimes in Lebanon and Gaza — suggests
that these are fellows disinclined to be “contained” even at the best of
times. But, even if Iran can be “contained” from nuking Tel Aviv, how
do you “contain” Iran’s
exercise of its nuclear status to advance its interests more
discreetly, or “contain” the mullahs’ generosity to states and non-state
actors less squeamish about using the technology? How do you “contain” a
nuclear Iran from de facto control of Gulf oil, including setting the
price and determining the customers?

All fascinating questions, and now that Hagel has announced
“containment” as the official administration position, we can all
discuss them.

Unfortunately, as Hillary said the other day, “our policy is
prevention, not containment.” So five minutes later the handlers
discreetly swung into action to “contain” Hagel. “I was just handed a
note that I misspoke,” he announced, “that I said I supported the
president’s position on containment. If I said that, I meant to say that
we don’t have a position on containment.”

Hagel’s revised position is
that there is no position on containment for him to have a position on.
Carl Levin, the Democrat chair, stepped in to contain further damage.
“We do have a position on containment, and that is we do not favor
containment,” he clarified. “I just wanted to clarify the clarify.”

Containment? Prevention? What difference does it make? Could happen
to anyone. I well remember when Neville Chamberlain landed at Heston
Aerodrome in 1938 and announced the latest breakthrough in appeasement:
“I have here a piece of paper from Herr Hitler.” Two minutes later, he
announced, “I have here a second piece of paper from my staffer saying
that I misspoke.” Who can forget Churchill’s stirring words in the House
of Commons? “If, indeed, it is the case that I said, ‘We shall fight on
the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall
never surrender!’ then I misspoke. I meant to say that we’re keeping the
situation under review and remain committed to exploring all options.”

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re as expert in all the nuances
of Iranian affairs as Chuck Hagel. After he’d hailed Iran’s “elected,
legitimate government,” it fell to another Democrat, Kirsten Gillibrand,
to prompt Hagel to walk it back. Okay, delete “elected” and
“legitimate”:
“What I meant to say, should have said, is that it’s recognizable.”

“Recognizable”? In the sense that, if you wake up one morning to a
big mushroom cloud on the horizon, you’d recognize it as the work of the
Iranian government? No, by “recognizable,” he meant that the Iranian
government is “recognized” as the government of Iran.

“I don’t understand Iranian politics,” he announced in perhaps his
least misspoken statement of the day. But the Iranians understand ours,
which is why, in an amusing touch, the foreign ministry in Tehran has
enthusiastically endorsed Hagel.

Fortunately, Iran is entirely peripheral to global affairs — it’s not
like Chad or the Solomon Islands or the other burning questions the
great powers are currently wrestling with — so it would be entirely
unreasonable to expect Hagel to understand anything much about what’s
going on over there. So what of his other, non-Iranian interests?

“There are a lot of things I don’t know about,” said Hagel. “If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do.”

He then denied that “I will be running anything.” Don’t let the fact
that the secretary of defense presides over 40 percent of the entire
planet’s military spending confuse you. He’s not really “running” a
thing — or, as he was anxious to assure us, “I won’t be in a
policy-making position.”

2 Comments:

Hagel sounds dumber than a seal. Having watched a lot of c-span broadcast of the Senate hearings, I can say that I was dismayed by his level of IGNORANCE. Were myself to debate him on TV he'd look really stupid. I know quite a few people who would bury him!May be he did the world a favor by UNVEILING OBAMA'S REALLY POLICY: CONTAINMENT OF A NUCLEAR IRAN.

A LIAR LIKE OBAMA SHOULD NOT CHOSE IDIOTS BUT SMART AND EVIL PEOPLE LIKE CLINTON TO PROTECT HIS EVIL DESIGN!

HaDaR, haven't you noticed, Obama does NOT have ANY really smart, capable people around him. They would be a potential threat. Better to have mediocrities, coat-tail hangers on who are dependent on going along to get along and pleasing The Boss for their positions and power.

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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 12 to 33 years and eight grandchildren. Three of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com